Toolkit
Welcome to the 2008/09 season!
Thanks to your enthusiasm for music, ladies and gentlemen, the Salle de Concerts Grande- Duchesse Joséphine-Charlotte has developed rapidly into a venue for encounters that radiate far beyond the country’s borders, caring for its local roots at the same time.
In its fourth season, the Philharmonie will continue to be a home for the many-facetted local music scene, while complementing its programme with great conductors and the best soloists, ensembles, and orchestras from the wide world of music.
Attending a live concert is an invitation to an intense creative experience – much more powerfully than artistic events or entertainment transmitted solely via the media. Active listening and communication in music seduce the senses of all those who let themselves become part of the process, rewarding them with a heightened awareness of the present.
Music brings a sense of infinity into finite occurrences. It embodies humanity in all its facets, from gentle comfort to Dionysian excesses, from entertainment to existential doubts. Anyone who has ever experienced a consummate concert has known the miracles that can happen in encounters with music and knows, too, that shared joy is multiplied. Carried by your interest, dear music friends, Luxembourg has become one of the most beautiful places for music!
In 2008/09, the existing concert series like «Grands orchestres», «Grands solistes», «Les grands classiques», or «Voyage dans le temps», which combine outstanding soloists with richly varied programmes, will be complemented by the new orchestra series «L’Orchestral». In this four-night subscription series, two concerts with the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra are counterbalanced by one concert with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and one with the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala.
The close relationship between the Philharmonie and Luxembourg’s philharmonic orchestra with its Music Director, Emmanuel Krivine, is demonstrated in further series of concerts by the orchestra offered in this season’s programme.
The «Concerts exceptionnels» promise to be really extraordinary. These concerts are offered by the Philharmonie in cooperation with promoters like the «Soirées du Luxembourg», or the Festival International Echternach; featuring amongst others Giuseppe Verdi’s monumental Messa da Requiem with Sir Colin Davis conducting the London Symphony Orchestra and the London Symphony Choir.
Together with the «Cinémathèque de la Ville de Luxembourg», we present the «Ciné-Concerts» – masterworks of the silent film era with outstanding musical accompaniment, for the first time in its own subscription series. As a result, the individuality of the «Pops» series, now also a cycle of its own, becomes more apparent. Entertainment, in the best sense of the word, invites the listener to a wide-ranging musical excursion – from New York’s Minimal Music to the
glamour of «Pops at the Phil» under the direction of Gast Waltzing, starring Dee Dee Bridgewater as special guest.
The diversity and creative energy of Luxembourg’s different musical scenes are mirrored in the concerts of the series «Fräiraim», as well as in many productions of contemporary music, jazz, and world music. Also, the continuously growing number of high-quality productions for young people – more than 125 concerts – provides an example of the highly developed artistic life of the Philharmonie Luxembourg. All of this is complemented by the «Solistes Européens Luxembourg», who have their own top-notch concert series, as well as by Luxembourg’s chamber orchestra «Les Musiciens».
Together with the team of the Philharmonie I look forward to seeing you again this season!
Sincerely,
Matthias Naske
Director General